TO BRISTOL AND SWINDON 43

In early autumn. The dinner had been better than I had
expected, and now I was quietly sinking Into that mood of
not unpleasant melancholy that comes to a man alone In a
strange dark town. The main street was singularly quiet.
Now and then a pair of lads would hail a passing pair of
girls; that was all. The only lights shone from the three
picture theatres of the town, from the pubs, which were poor
places, and from a fish-and-chip shop here and there. These
were not enough to take the murk out of the street, which
had an unfriendly shuttered look. This, I said to myself as
I wandered about in the dwindling rain, Is one of the
penalties inflicted upon you if you live In these smaller indus-
trial towns, where you can work but cannot really play. A
town In which men have worked hard all day at their giant
engines ought to be glittering and gay at night, If only for
an hour or two. This street should be ablaze with light.
One ought to be able to look through great windows and
see the triumphant engine-makers with their wives, sweet-
hearts, children, eating and drinking and dancing and
listening to music, beneath illuminations as brilliant as their
furnaces. The street should be shaking happily with waltz
tunes. Let those who are tired out, let the quiet and
studious ones, sit at home, but those who want light,
company, cheerful noise, gaiety, should have these things,
for they have earned them. Think of the energy, the
organisation, the drive of purpose required to construct the
Cheltenham Flier with its eighty-odd miles an hour; or even
the energy, organisation, drive of purpose required to cram
these Woolworth stores with the mass products of Czecho-
slovakia and Japan; why, a minute fraction of these could
fill this dark street with light, music, gaiety. So I told myself
as I wandered about, after trying and rejecting a pub or
two, mere little boxes of smoke and the smell of stale beer.
A turning at the bottom of this main street directed me